What Does it Mean to be a Paranormal Investigator or Ghost Hunter?

To be a paranormal investigator or ghost hunter means to put the reputation of the group above all else, once your rep has gone so has your credibility. In order to do this you have to be certain that anything you publish as possibly paranormal doesn’t have a perfectly ordinary explanation, check, double check and triple check.

If you aren’t sure then publish it as an interesting aside and ask people for their opinions. If you make a mistake own it and apologise, don’t cover it up. If you find you have dubious people in your organisation, get rid of them as soon as possible. Always be open and honest and where possible always stay inside the law, and always stay on the right side of morality when conducting investigations or ghost hunts. Never trust someone claiming to be a medium until such time that the medium have proved themselves.

Being Open-Minded

The first and most important quality you need, and an absolute prerequisite is… an open mind. It doesn’t matter if you have a sceptical approach or if you believe in paranormal phenomena, provided you are prepared to have your outlook altered by evidence and experience.

People to Avoid

There are however a lot of people that can’t accept that they are or could be wrong in their assumptions. These people fall into two camps; 1. Those who believe blindly in the paranormal, and 2. Those who steadfastly insist that there is no such thing as paranormal activity of any kind. For the first group, no evidence is necessary. For the second group, no amount of evidence is enough. These people can never be paranormal investigators and you don’t want anyone from either camp in your organisation – especially the believers, their blind faith could undermine all of the checks you have put in place and damage the reputation of your organisation.

Be Patient

Another quality you need to be a ghost hunter is patience, ghosties, ghoulies, and long legged beasties aren’t going to crawl out of the wood work at every paranormal investigation, or even most of them if you specialise in ghost hunts (finding new phenomena). If they do decide to come out and play, remember the old paranormal investigators saying: “It’s best to be chased by the ghosties than caught by the ghoulies.” – go on smile

Courage

Courage is also a necessity. If you’re there to catch paranormal phenomena it’s absolutely no good getting upset or frightened, when you inevitably find something a little unnerving. Courage also extends to dealing with any practical problems that may emerge, like dealing with any accident with a level head or dealing with the authorities should this be required.

Common Sense

Common sense, this is probably the second most important quality (right under open mind) but using a bit of nous, can often head off problems before they arise.

Determination & A Sense of Humour

Determination comes in handy, especially if you’ve had no results for a while. It’s no good chucking your toys out of the pram and quitting like Yvette Fielding did. Her excuse, if memory serves, was that the ghost’s weren’t active enough. Another instance when determination is useful is when you are dealing with idiots who make sweeping statements about the paranormal without having the first clue as to what they are talking about. You’ll also need a hefty dose of patience and a sense of humour with it, to avoid ripping off the idiot in questions arms and beating them to death with the soggy ends.

That concludes the third and final tutorial, I hope you have found them interesting and informative.